GYAC-N x 14IACC: Exciting anti-corruption days ahead!

[Joseph Mansilla]

Dear CORRUPTION,

First of all, as our friend David Garcia would say, YOU ARE IN BAD SHAPE! Well, for one, we, the GYAC-N representatives at the 14th IACC, are out to get ya, joining 1,000-strong anti-corruption advocates from the world over. And not only that, we're also getting more and more people to join us in this global crusade! HA. Good riddance.

No love,
Me

.....

And now, an update:

As a GYAC journalist, I've been working with the Social Media Unit of the IACC:

FOR THE LATEST, DO FOLLOW US LIVE ON http://twitter.com/#search?q=#14iacc

I was asked to interview people for the “Corruption, Long Story Short” board. Basically, conference participants’ unique and personal take on corruption, in 2-3 sentences. What’s corruption for you? How does it affect you and how do you think it affects other people? What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “corruption”? The answers I’ve gotten so far have been as interesting as they are varied. Somebody from the US State Department who has been fighting international corruption for 20 years commented on how the discourse about corruption and the actions to be taken against it have changed immensely over the years. The environment and avenues for discussions have definitely opened up, and this IACC and our GYAC network are evidence of that. A T.I. representative from Berlin, meanwhile, believes that corruption caused the deregulation of the financial industry in the US, which led to the big financial crisis. He said that these came from the subtle forms of corruption, like paying off regulators and lobbying. There was also a consensus about how corruption denies people very basic, fundamental rights like justice because corruption easily clouds and influences the judiciary in some countries like Lebanon, where my interviewee was from. And as we all know, corruption misappropriate/expropriate money that should go to government programs like infrastructure and health care, but corruption isn’t really just taking away our money, but more importantly our RIGHTS. Another interesting interview was with someone working with the Anti-Corruption Compliance Program of her company in Norway. It was very great to know that even the private sector is doing something in the global work against corruption. She believes that private enterprises really need to engrain anti-corruption practices in the ways they are run. These companies should also get their voices heard by communicating their stance against corruption and actively engaging in anti-corruption work! And finally, somebody from Maldives commented on how corruption has been seen as a niche and treated like it’s an isolated problem, when in fact it’s EVERYWHERE. She said the solution can be seen in what we’re doing here in IACC, which is introducing anti-corruption tools in as many fields as possible, like climate change, which affects the most vulnerable people.

If you're interested in contributing to this wall, please feel free to send me your answers to the questions I posted. But remember, they're just guides. You could tell me anything and everything about corruption.. long story short. And I'll make sure it gets posted and your/our voices are heard!